Saturday, October 17, 2015

Bare Nosed Wombats Not Protected All Over Victoria........

It beggars belief, but the bare nosed wombats, before white settlement called the "common" wombats are no longer such or protected all over Victoria. Endless entreaties to do so and the reasons they should be protected are not endorsed or possibly understood by the Victoria Government or their environmental arm.

So many parishes where there is no protection for wombats

So letters to the DELWP have not produced any reason why the protection of the bare nosed wombats in some parishes is in force, but not in others? It appears a very hodge podge legislation, and no explanation forthcoming?

There is a paper: REVIEW: Is the loss of Australian digging mammals contributing to a deterioration in ecosystem function? Mammal Review ISSN 0305-1838 That clearly shows how important digging mammals and by their actions, probably reptiles and insects, are to the continued fertility level as it is, and increase if we allow enough of these little diggers to survive.

You don't need to be a university graduate to know that wombats of all kinds and digging animals have been part of the shaping of our landscape. The landscape most of us enjoy when we leave the suburbs and cities and attempt to salve our souls and rescue our sanity. But it seems to be forgotten that they have a role to play still.

Farming of every kind needs so much expensive input, that farmers are screaming about lower profits yields and production of every kind. The consumer is supposed to pay for these increases in costs that could be avoided. Hard pans are a result of shallow ploughing and the Yeoman deep ripping is no substitute for the wombat and other digging and earth disturbing animals that come at little if any real cost.

It's well known that many property owners kill wombats because they really can't see beyond the hole in the ground, to all the benefits it bestows to their little fiefdoms and our world.

From the paper above:

[quote]
Digging mammals therefore create a range of disturbances in the form of nose pokes, scratchings, shallow to deep digs, long bulldozing tracts and complex subterranean burrows (Eldridge & Mensinga 2007). They manipulate the substrate and create a variety of disturbances that affect resource availability, contributing to land, soil and water quality (Martin 2003). In this review, we investigate how the loss of Australian
[end quote]

It's beyond the grasp of the Victorian government to see the value of bare nosed wombats, but one hopes at sometime in the future the penny will drop. Yeah, that's likely to happen.

During the time that Gavin Jennings had control of the environment and Climate Change portfolio, there was to be a review of the status of the Bare Nosed Wombat [aka the Common Wombat]. But it was never implemented. One wonders why this was? It was such an excellent opportunity to highlight the importance of these little diggers and others that helped to spread soil over leaf and bark litter in the forest and reduce the occasion and intensity of forest fires.

But there was an overstated consideration for farmers and landholders upset when a couple of wombats came onto their property. The damage that wombats were supposed to have caused was also overstated and laced with hyperbole.

So we are currently in this situation and one could assume that there will not be a review in the near future. No point in mentioning that the non lethal methods of excluding any animal is supposed to be the first considered. It's just too easy to reach for a firearm.

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About Us

The Snug Wildlife Shelter is dedicated to the care and succour of orphaned and injured Australian native animals, preserving them in their natural state and returning them to the habitat to which they belong and which is theirs by heritage much stronger and binding than our own. The aim is to highlight the plight of and appreciation of the practical and intrinsic value of Australia's native animals in this modern world. We are in the process of learning how to live in harmony and share the living space which belongs to other creatures.